


Jumping Through Portals

by Bloodskyangel



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Ross is Wheatley, Suzy is glados cause idk, other grumps mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-11 21:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5641786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloodskyangel/pseuds/Bloodskyangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan wakes at Aperture and finds himself at the mercy of Glados as he tries to figure out why the Institute is abandoned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wake Up Call

**Author's Note:**

> I will warn that I didn't play the games but have faith that I'm doing all the homework I feel like I need to do. I just really wanted a crack at this story seeing as the Grumps are having a blast. I will say that in terms as testing and the room layouts I will take artistic liberties. The first chapter is the only chapter where things happen as they did in the game. Please have patience as I fumble through this.

Dan woke up in a small room. As his eyes scanned the room he tried to get up. The bed was spacious but lumpy and the décor reminded him of some cheap tourist motel. He saw there was a TV sticking out of the wall, a few wall-mounted lamps, and a picture of a mountain range that didn’t match the décor of the room. The walls looked old with palm trees painted on them and the natural lighting that crept from the window didn’t hide the gloom of the room. A large cable wire was bolted to the ceiling which made Dan uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure where he was. He vaguely recalled taking a tour of the Aperture facilities and feeling overwhelmed by the size of the building and all the people in lab coats. When Dan finally managed to stand up he felt like crashing back on to the bed. His head spun and he had a large headache. He felt like he woke from a long nap. He was so disoriented he didn’t notice the camera in the corner of the room start to focus on him. He was able to regain focus after a short while and made his way to the desk which sat under the god awful painting. He sat down and tied to think. He wouldn’t stay in some dingy motel since his apartment was only an hour drive and he didn’t remember whether or not he got the job as a test subject. Dan placed his palms to his face and noticed his sleeves. He stood up and looked down at his clothes. They weren’t his at all! He recognized the orange jumpsuit as the ones the test subjects were wearing. He supposed he did get the job and wondered if perhaps he was being tested at that moment. Panic suddenly seeped in: what if he was failing? He looked around the room and noticed a wooden door that somehow matched the lonely mood of the room. He saw no other option but to walk through it. As he approached the door he heard someone pound on it. Dan paused and stared at the door. He heard more pounding and a voice asking if anyone was inside. He had a sudden awful feeling in the pit of his stomach. He almost asked for the voice to wait while he vomited. Dan swallowed the feeling and tried to think positively. Maybe it was a scientist or a fellow test subject that can help him. Maybe he knew what was going on and could either help him or point him in the right direction. He noted that the voice sounded foreign but he couldn’t quite place it. Dan opened the door and stared. He was face to face with a giant metallic ball with a single blue eye. The ball blinked at Dan and Dan reeled back in horror and ran to the back of the room. The ball invited himself in via the cable bolted to the ceiling. Dan was barely listening as the ball started speaking.

“You doing okay? You are good? Yeah. Yeah of course you are. You’re good. You’re good. And well if you aren’t then stop being a pussy. I’m kidding, I kid! You’re obviously okay! We’ll if you’ll excuse me…” The ball moved his way up the cable to a small door on the ceiling and slid up inside it. “Just one minute! Won’t be but a second, I swear!”

Dan felt a shaking in the room which didn’t build up any more than it was doing currently. He fell on to the bed and cursed as he tried to stand up again only for another tremor to shake him back down. Dan looked up to see the ball, whose voice he once found charming now to be the bane of his existence, come out of the ceiling. The ball somehow looked apologetic to the poor disoriented man struggling to get off the bed and at once began to stutter again.  
“You see, when test subjects go under, suspension I mean, they feel kind dizzy and stuff after a few months of being in suspension. But you have… uh I mean you have been under much longer than that but hey that is nothing to worry about. I mean sure there is some chance, a major chance of, brain damage”

Dan felt his eyes bulge in fear and was about to scream profanities at the robot but he heard a computer in the distance say something about a meltdown. As Dan was about to question the announcement he felt the room shake again. He dashed to the other side of the room as he noticed the room started to break apart; slowly at first but as a full second passed the room was pulled apart, chunk by chunk. Dan hyperventilated as the giant ball stammered about himself being in trouble and complained in a pouty tone about his responsibility of taking care of subjects and being left out of the loop of their deaths. Dan watched as the dingy motel room was stripped of its walls to reveal a large warehouse. His room was just one of many and was the only one moving. Dan looked up as the ball looked like it was trying to concentrate. Dan realized the metal basketball was “driving” the room. Dan was in awe and wondered how it managed to drive the room and complain about “management” yelling at him about vegetables or something. Dan decided not to bother with trying to figure out what his driver was talking about. He couldn’t pay attention even if he wanted to; there was too much to take in. The other rooms suspended by beams and his own raggedy room making its way pass them felt to sci-fi for Dan. He couldn’t accept it at all. He suddenly did have to accept it as the room crashed into other suspended rooms and beams as the ball talked about an on-coming testing room.

“There’s a gun in there that we need” The room crashed into a wall and backed up. Dan tried to hold on as best he could and felt too paralyzed to call the ball crazy. As the room repeatedly crashed into the wall and backed up Dan felt that the room would crumble before it made any real head way. In half despair and half amazement Dan saw that the room indeed was crumbling but so was the wall. With one final crash the room broke in half along with the wall. Dan stared at the broken room he stood in as the giant ball nodded to the other broken room that lay before him. 

“Oi, what are you waiting for go on!”

“I’m waiting til I can find a hoop to dunk your ass”

“Rude. Go in there and get the gun”

“Are you kidding I’m not gonna run in there to get a gun! I don’t know how to use it and why the hell do I need it?!”

“It’s not that kind of gun you dummy! I’m sorry I’m just really stressed out. It’s a gun that makes holes”

“All guns do that” Dan looked up impatiently

“No you…” Dan heard a mechanical sigh and it finally occurred to him how human this robotic ball really seemed. “This isn’t a gun that shoots bullets. It makes holes in walls and stuff and you can walk through them”

Dan stared at the robot ball and pondered how he got stuck here and for how long. Things his robotic companion said only now started to sink in to him but he had a feeling that now wasn’t the time to sit around and think about it all. He certainly wasn’t in the place for it. He made the leap to the other room just as the room he was in creaked with the anticipation of a drop. However the talking ball didn’t seem to be worried as it nodded in approval. Dan made careful steps and only ran to avoid falling through broken glass. He almost made it to the other side of the room he crashed into when he fell through some broken glass he didn’t see. He looked up and saw he fell down a few feet. As he picked himself up he saw the boots he was wearing. They made the fall painless while keeping him upright through his fall. He felt them and found them to be metallic yet flexible enough to walk comfortably. He saw he was in a new small glass room and walked through it to reach a door. Dan didn’t know what to expect on the other side of this door. He didn’t necessarily know what to hope for. He somewhat hoped the ball would come around again but figured another human would be much more comforting. Regardless he knew he needed to walk through the door. He turned the nob and hesitantly opened it, not ready for anything to greet him on the other side.


	2. Wake me up when the nightmare is over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan realizes going through tests isn't going to be an easy quest since the facility itself is giving him issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm terrible at keeping a schedule. As much as I would like to post a chapter every week like I use to, it's just not gonna work out. I'll post the minute I can. I just hope I can mange to post more than once a month...

A warped recording played as Dan stepped through the door and saw a room overtaken by plant life. He saw that vines broke through cracks in the steel and concrete walls and floors. The warped recording struggled to play the last minute of the message while Dan looked around for a way out of the vine infested room. “…Portal testing will continue. Ready yourself for the start of testing. First portal door will open now” Dan looked around desperately to not miss his chance as a large hole with an orange energy rim appeared on a concrete wall in another side of the room. He approached the white concrete wall and studied the hole for a minute. He knew it was a portal; he had to read a little about what he was expected to do and how to do it. “One of the things I was expected to do was climb through portals” Dan thought as he bent down a bit to walk his tall lanky body through the portal. He stood straight as he walked into a completely different room that wasn’t as infested with vines as much as decorated with flying electrical sparks and ripped wires. A large broken window was the only thing that wasn’t concrete and he could vaguely see another room which reassured Dan. A large tube stuck out from the ceiling and a series of lights ran up from the wall to the tube. “Welp, guess that’s my clue on how to get out of this room” Dan spoke to himself as he walked a few steps up to the large tube. He felt like he was risking the chance of the tube sucking him up into another room; a room that would surely have a means to end him.

Dan searched the tube and found nothing. The lights that were on the wall did lead to the tube but when Dan traced the path backwards he found a pad in the corner of the room. He walked up to it and crouched down to inspect the strange rectangular pad. He recognized it as the pad where he was to put something called the Companion Cube. Dan wasn’t meant to know about the Cube until testing but his friend Barry couldn’t help himself and told Dan about the Cube. Dan didn’t understand why Barry was so fascinated by the Cube to the point that Barry would mutter in his sleep about some conversations he had with the Cube. Dan tried stepping where the Cube should have been placed but nothing happened. He looked around and noticed that the portal he walked through had vanished. It didn’t make any sense to him; how was he supposed to get the Cube originally in the only way in here was through a portal? There wasn’t a Cube in the other room and he didn’t see a door leading to another room where the Cube could possibly be. Dan wondered if the way he came in wasn’t the original way to get to this room. He knew the robotic ball wasn’t supposed to bring him here the way that it did, that much was obvious, but maybe there was a room prior to this one that held the Cube. Dan figured he was stuck in that room for eternity and wasn’t sure if he’d go insane or starve to death first. He paced around the room several times to make sure he didn’t miss anything obvious and came up with nothing. Dan sat next to the Companion Cube pad and tried to calm down. He could feel his heart beat faster the longer he was in the room. He could see the window was broken enough that maybe he could crash through if he tried running into it. He couldn’t be sure if he could solve the puzzle in the next room if there was one but he had to try. Dan took a deep breath and walked to the wall opposite the window. He took a minute before he charged at the window. He raised his arms to protect his face as he crashed through broken glass. Dan felt himself run into something as his hip hit a corner.

Dan fell to the floor and laid with his eyes closed as he tried to recover and comprehend what he just did. He didn’t want to open his eyes and check his body in case there were large pieces of glass stuck in his body. Dan felt nauseous at the thought but looked anyway. “A few cuts here and there but nothing serious” Dan sighed happily as he realized how lucky he was. He stood up and looked for what he bumped into. He saw a large white, gray, and pink cube with a large heart in the middle of each side. Dan recognized it as the Cube immediately from Barry’s ramblings and drawings. He ran to it and hugged his savior. He enthusiastically tried to push the Cube but found that it was too heavy. The Cube wouldn’t budge no matter how hard he shoved it. Dan began to feel panic creep up on him yet again until an idea dawned on him: if he can get to the room before this one there should be something that would let him drag the Cube around. He looked around and found two doors. One wouldn’t open when he walked up to it while the other door opened immediately. Dan walked through the door to a room much larger than the other rooms. Dan figured it was a testing room but couldn’t tell what kind of testing would have taken place. Even if he knew about the whole test he couldn’t tell what was supposed to happen here since the room was practically demolished. Support beams were toppled over and looked like they were hit by a wrecking ball. The ceiling fell a long time ago, leaving only small spaces in the wreckage to see the other side of the room. The walls were cracked and crumbling. Dan couldn’t imagine what happened here. He just hoped no one was hurt. Dan looked down to see a device on the floor. Dan had a feeling the device shouldn’t have been there but walked up to it to take it. The minute he grabbed it, Dan heard feedback followed by a garbled voice. Dan recognized the voice somewhat and strained to hear what it said.

“Oye! Uhm… Hey! Hey there can you hear me? I accessed the sound system and now I can help you until you get to the next room where we can meet up!”

Dan groaned as he realized it was the weird robot from earlier. As much as he didn’t want to work with that annoying cyber ball he figured he had no choice but to do so until he can either complete his testing or find a way out. “Oh uh hello…uh I just realized I didn’t have a chance to ask your name”

“You had plenty of chances to ask Dan, you just didn’t make the effort” The voice snorted.

Dan rolled his eyes. “Sorry”, he retorted in a sarcastic tone, “it’s not every day I wake up in a test facility with no memory and the world literally crashing around me with only a robotic ball with a blue eye to guide me” Now he said it out loud Dan wondered how much brain damage he took while being under suspension.

“I guess that’s fair. It’s Ross. Just put the portal gun on your arm”

Dan did so and looked at the device. It did look like a gun barrel but white and shiny.

“Now press buttons to shoot portals. There are two colors for two portals. The portals link together because of some sciency stuff and there should be a separate button so you can pick stuff up”

Dan shook his head as he couldn’t believe he was taking advice and learning the functions of the portal gun by someone who didn’t seem 100% familiar with the gun. He did find that there were a couple triggers that were close by each other on the underside of the gun and a button on the side. He aimed at a wall on the opposite side of the room and fired using one of the triggers. He felt his arm being pushed back from the force of the recoil and saw a hole appear on the other side of the room. He stared at the blue energy that surrounded and filled the hole. Who could have left such an amazing device behind? Dan turned around and fired with the other trigger at the wall behind him. He saw purple energy surround the clear hole and saw the backside of the wreckage of the room. When he squinted he realized he saw someone. “Hey!” Dan cried and waved his arms above his head desperately. The other person didn’t turn around but waved in the same manner. Dan stopped waving and put his arms down slowly. He saw himself put his arms down in a defeated manner and saw his body slouch. He wasn’t even aware that his body did so and quickly made himself stand up straight and tall. He sniffed and walked out of the room and went back to get the Cube. Now wasn’t the time for feeling sorry for myself, he thought. He pressed the button on the side of the gun and saw a light blue energy beam shoot out of his gun for a second. Dan pressed it again and held it as the beam extended until it made contact with the Cube. The Cube shot back towards Dan and stopped right in front of the gun barrel. Dan breathed a sigh of relief as he walked through the broken window and placed the Cube on the pad. He heard a loud ding as the door opened. He looked to the tube and saw nothing come out. It didn't even open. Dan felt uneasy yet victorious. Dan used the gun to pick up the Cube again and saw that the door stayed open. He figured he may need the cube later and took it out with him. There’s no telling how much of the course that’s left is broken or if this is the only cube. Dan was glad to solve that puzzle but thinking about how he needed to solve it wasn’t reassuring to the rest of his testing. He just hoped that it wouldn’t involve running through anymore glass.


End file.
